It's Just One Piece
by YJchick
Summary: My parents tried to love me but in the end their love couldn’t hold up to the fear of me being different in their small, uniform world. It was their last, true act of love that made them send me to Harry Potter.My name is Ella Dursely and this is my story


My parents tried to love me. Really, they did. But in the end my parents love couldn't hold up to the fear. Their love crumbled beneath the weight of their terror and it was turned into something harder and more rigid than love could ever be. It was their fear of me being different. Different than them in their small, uniform world. And I guess I can't blame them for that. They tried. They tried so hard. And it was their last, true act of love that made them send me to Harry Potter, my uncle. They knew that he would understand. That he could and would love me for me. The way my parents wanted to more than anything but couldn't. My name is Ella Dursley and this is my story.

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"Billy, that's not fair! You always get to go first. Besides, I'm oldest."

"So!"

"So I should go first!" but it was too late. Billy, my little brother, had already climbed his way up to the seat of our new bicycle. The one that we were supposed to "share." The bike was emerald green with navy training wheels, peddles, and handlebars. Billy grasped the handlebars clumsily; his hands seemed tiny next to the big, rubber steering bar.

"Ella," Billy cried joyfully as he lurched forward, spinning the wheels the bicycle's tires, "Look at me!"

"Billy" I cried running after him. It was only as I watched Billy sway on the teetering bicycle that I realized I was holding his helmet. "Billy stop!" I yelled after him but he hadn't heard me. He had plowed straight into one of the little birch trees sprinkled along the sidewalk.

"Ella! It hurts. It hurts!" Billy screamed as I ran over to wear he was lying on the ground, a purple ring circling his eye.

"It's ok," I said soothingly, trying to keep calm. "Show me where it hurts?"

"Right here" he said, tears pouring down his face as he pointed to his eye.

"Don't worry," I said. I bent over, my chestnut hair tickling Billy's face, and kissed his bruise. "Is it better now?"

"I guess so," he said. I squeezed his pudgy hand and helped him to his feet. "But I want daddy."

"Ok," is said. I knew he didn't want daddy because his head hurt. He only wanted daddy because he knew that because he had hurt himself, our father would give us something. "Daddy!" I screamed and my father's head popped out of the window.

"Daddy!" Billy cried in a fresh set of tears. These tears, I knew, were not real.

My father's head vanished from the window and he walked through the front door. "Billy, are you ok?" he asked.

"No! Daddy look," he said pointing at his eye. My brother ran into my father's arms and buried his face in his arms. Through the space in my father's arms, my brother stuck his tongue out at me.

"What if I buy you something?" my father asked desperately. "Will that make it ok? What do you want, just name it?"

"I want... I want... I want ice cream!" my brother said as the music of the ice cream truck rang through the street.

"Daddy, could I have one too?" I asked sweetly. I won't lie, I'm daddy's little girl. I had my father wrapped very tightly around my pinky.

"Of course, baby" he said. My father looked into my brown eyes and smiled. He was only happy when he was sure we were happy.

My brother waddled over to the ice cream truck and looked up at the ice cream man with the blue eyes he had inherited from my father. "I'm gonna have the Strawberry Shortcake, the Chocolate Éclair, the Toasted Almond, and the Candy Center Crunch. Please?"

"Coming right up Billy. Mr. Dursley." He said nodding to my father who had walked over to stand next to Billy.

"I told you" my father said good-naturedly, "call me Dudley."

The ice cream man smiled and looked down at me. "Anything for you Ella?"

"Could I have-"

"She doesn't want anything," Billy said and he kicked me in the shins so hard that my eyes started to water. The ice cream man shrugged and went in the back to get Billy his ice creams. "Thanks" said Billy and he smiled cutely at the ice cream man.

I followed Billy as he opened his ice creams. I was fuming. "What'd you go and do that for?" I screamed at him.

"What are you talking about," my brother asked innocently.

"You know what I'm talking about. I want an ice cream and I want it now!"

Billy smiled maliciously. "All you had to do was ask." he said and slammed his Candy Center Crunch right on my stomach. He had slammed it there with so much force that I fell gracelessly on to my butt. "Is that what you wanted?" he asked mockingly and ran down the sidewalk.

I had never been this mad before. Sure, Billy had done some bad things before but this was the worst. He had never completely humiliated in front of everyone.

"BILLY!" I screamed as I ran after him. "I'M GONNA GET YOU FOR THIS!" but I didn't need to. His ice cream already had.

One of his ice creams had smashed itself into his face while another had him in the back of the head. The last one had shoved its way down the back of his shirt.

And it had done this, if I might add, all by itself.

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I wasn't supposed to be listening. I wasn't supposed to but they were talking about me. So I did.

"Dudley you promised when I married you that we wouldn't make those... those things."

"I know honey and I didn't think we would. I only had an aunt who was one of those..." he left the place empty but kept going. "I thought that there was no possible way that we could make a..."

My mother had burst into tears. "Just call it by its proper name! A freak! My seven-year-old daughter is a freak."

"She's not a freak. She's just... just different."

"I don't want anything different!" She wailed behind the closed door of the living room.

"Shhh... honey, you don't want to wake Ella or Billy up." I guess my mother must have completely broken down because all I could hear was the sound of wrenching sobs and the soothing rumble of my father's voice.

"Dudley," my mother said after a while" I couldn't bare the thought of Billy being one too. I just don't think I could stand it."

"Honey, he won't be."

"How do you know that?" She suddenly screamed at him. "How can I trust you when you lied to me?" I can almost see the tears start to stream down her face but they weren't just sad tears. They were mad and frustrated and betrayed. "You told me we wouldn't make one of those. You promised." I heard her get up and start pacing around the room. Her trusty black pumps, the ones she wore everyday, making a _clack-clack-clack _sound on the hard wood floor. "Is there anything we can do? Can we stamp it out of her?"

"It doesn't work." My father said quietly. "She'll be one of them forever."

My mother collapsed into a new fit of sobs and I heard from behind the door my father get up and embrace her. "What can we do Dudley?" My mother asked so quietly through her sobs that I had press my ear against the door to hear her.

"The only thing we can do. We can love her. Just the way she is."

"I don't know if I can do that Dudley. I just don't know."

I hadn't realized that I had been crying until I picked my head up from the door to see it covered with tears. I had been crying just as my mother had. Only we were crying for different reasons.

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"Mommy, can we have ice cream." My brother called as the ice cream truck came down road.

"Of course, honey" She said. The _clack-clack-clack _on the sidewalk reminded me of last night. My mother hadn't looked me in the eye since.

"The usual?" the ice cream man asked and Billy nodded his head vigorously. "Anything for you Ella?" the ice cream man asked and just as it had happened yesterday the reply was "She doesn't want anything"

But this time it hadn't been Billy who had said it. It had been my mother.


End file.
